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06/12/2017 12:00 AMDespite having fewer athletes than last year, the East Haven outdoor track program put together a solid season in 2017. Although the overall numbers limited what the Yellowjackets could accomplish as a whole, they still saw plenty of people perform well throughout the campaign. Two of those people—juniors Haley Montesanto and Jordan Ingram—competed on behalf of East Haven’s girls’ and boys’ teams, respectively, at the State Open Championship at Willow Brook Park in New Britain on June 5.
Generally, the Easties feature an excellent core of sprinters, but this year, many of their points were scored in the technical events. Leading the way for the Yellowjackets’ girls’ team was Sydney Marquardt. The junior recorded 120.25 points for Head Coach Rusty Dunne’s squad, while qualifying for the Class MM State Championship in the long jump, pole vault, 100, and 200, as well as part of the 4x100 relay.
East Haven’s next-leading scorer was fellow junior Montesanto, who totaled 103.25 points between the 100, 300 hurdles, 4x100 relay, and the 4x400 relay. Montesanto was East Haven’s most decorated postseason runner as she qualified for the State Open Championship in the 300-meter hurdles. Montesanto finished 20th at the Open with a time of 48.31 seconds, which marked a personal-record performance.
“She got better in every meet and sealed it in the State Championship. Then she ran the best time of her life in the Open. That’s what you’re looking for. You want the graph to go in that direction,” Coach Dunne said. “She’s competitive. We told her the 300 is long, and running it with hurdles is even longer. She knew she was running with some formidable opponents and wanted to prove that she belonged there.”
On the boys’ side, Jordan Ingram qualified for the State Open for the Easties. Ingram ran the 100-meter dash and sprinted to an 11th-place finish in 11.41 seconds. While the numbers on the squad were a little low like with the girls, Dunne said that he and boys’ Head Coach Jim Vicario both got quality results from a limited number of athletes.
“We got as much out of them as we could’ve gotten out of them,” Dunne said. “In most of our dual meets and definitely in the postseason, we didn’t leave many points behind. We got what we could’ve and maximized what we had.”
Other top point scorers for the girls’ team this year were junior Summer Onorato (84), junior Katie Maffeo (71), junior Molly Mazzucco (69), sophomore Paige Maffeo (48.25), and freshman Isabella Ragaini (48), who all put together great campaigns in their respective events.
“A lot of our kids ended up in technical events this year,” said Dunne. “The upper-tier scorers were involved in a lot of different events.”
Dunne said he’s looking for Ragaini to potentially break the school’s javelin record at some point during her career.
“She’s got good size, strength, and runs well, too. She was also a part of the 4x400 relay team that [broke the school record with Montesanto, Paige Maffeo, and Katie Maffeo]. She can be very good,” Dunne said. “Our school record in the javelin is 115 feet, and it would be my assumption that she has the opportunity to throw that far at some point.”
The great news for the girls’ team is that they aren’t losing any seniors to graduation from this season. The lack of seniors forced East Haven’s juniors to step up into leadership roles this year, and Coach Dunne feels excited that everyone will return in 2018.
“The girls worked hard this year, but you need some numbers and bodies, which we didn’t have enough of,” he said. “As always, the girls we had were excellent. Since we had no seniors, we’ll have everybody back which is a good thing. Having everybody back will be good.”
For the boys’ team, Niam Coward, McClay Marshall, Dom Manna, Reinaldo Martinez, Austin Rivera, and James Stephens are the Yellowjackets’ graduating seniors.